Ending With a Line By a Band Called X

Ending with a Line by a Band Called X


I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but caring little for it, and much more for my imperfect garden.
--Michel de Montaigne


I want death to find me lying in a hammock
tied between two parking meters (the timers,
of course, about to announce my expiration).


And like Montaigne (see epigraph above),
I will not care about death and its approach,
instead I will pay close attention to the city


before me: my legs crossed at the ankles, a book
opened and resting on my belly, my fingers in a weave
and positioned behind my head. I will watch


the traffic come to a halt at the intersection,
smoke from the exhausts pushing into the sky,
spiraling above a high-rise. I will inhale the aromas


that float from the restaurants nearby:
the garlic, the curry, the ginger, all tickling
the hairs in my nose, all begging me to step down


into the world again. And the boys on the corner
will drum their plastic buckets, my heart trying
to keep time with the beat they lay down. An old man


who’s been alone too long, his clothes so thin
they are on the verge of disappearing,
will emerge and stand in front of the boys


whose heads will bow as they work the sticks. This day
will be different. With a windmill motion
of his arm, this man will rise again


and begin his dance. Wood slapping hard plastic,
one of the boys will call out, the others will return
the call, and the old man will snap his dirty fingers,


tap his rotten shoes, the soles wagging
like thirsty tongues, and as he shakes his filthy, stinking ass,
his voice will whoop into the dusk of the city,


a city that will stop all at once to watch him,
a man they've never seen before, a man they've refused
to look at, who dances for their salvation,


whose arms will open wide as if to embrace them
in one large grasp, whose lips will pucker
with eyes shut and brow furrowed, as if to say,


the world's a mess, it's in my kiss.


Dan Memmolo


Posted over on Dan Memmolo/ Beat Surrender
(Originally published in Sycamore Review, Summer 1999)